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The archive is a separate site formed from all the posts from that original Ink Sweat & Tears website, it consists of everything we have published up to the end of 2019.

Recent posts

Hiram Larew on World Poetry Day

      Hardly This little what called big These squeaks that think they are rules The drips that imagine themselves storming These less than nothing headlines or empty spotlights This barely hardly that struts so special Are what I call a pile of...

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Nina Parmenter

      Woman 2.0 Woman 1.0 had bagged half the market but further growth eluded us. Aesthetic upgrades! barked the CEO. We hired a consultant. The fur trim lacks thought, he hissed at the kick-off meeting. It needs moving HERE. THIS area screams for...

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Daya Bhat

      * first rain- puddling up to gather the sky * midnight parade on my wall, insomniac car lights * still holding her own among the who’s who - crescent moon     Daya Bhat from Bangalore, India enjoys writing free verse and short form...

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John Davies

      Afterthought She knits something pink with curved needles, pauses only to check and recheck the lines of code that define the pattern she nibbles with her fingers. She casts off the raised levels of FHA, her daughter’s ovulation, the tantalising...

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Mick Corrigan

      From the Blue Life won’t be contained by how far the horizon, we don’t compose the song of each other but revel in the days of making. Love carries the seeds of its own tragedy and you can’t come through it unscathed, but endure the days of...

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Matt Gilbert

      Afoot Only, when your face slams into solid glass, somewhere outside Dorking – a squared-off edge unmentioned in map or guide – do you realise what’s going on, presence noted by a watchful deer, wary at the edge of woods, the skulk of abandoned...

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Nikki Robson

      Valentine’s Day, 2016 The red-eye was delayed three times.  On the third I told them my father had died and I had to get home. I was given yesterday’s paper. My mobile rang: a woman wanted to change her contract. I told her my father had died. She...

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Imogen McHugh

      Driven I named him Driven after what he had done. Thinking of all the places we would go together under the canopies of the trees, the watery suns the skin of his knuckles popped out against the steering wheel one hand at two o’clock, the other...

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Richa Sharma

      cold saturday i thank him for nothing * mother's house where i was born still moonlit * anniversary the missing years in our collage * where wildflowers are caretakers unvisited house * childless spring in my parking space an abandoned tricycle *...

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Marie Little

      In the Garden Club Hut with Dad Underarmed up onto the bench beside you pondering your bad back, too much flesh above my knees I absorb the morning like a dry seed. You chat, easy with customers most already friends hand them smiles in paper bags...

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Cindy Botha

      Footnotes to a river Pine trees are confirmation that darkness clings erratically. The river-gums, on the other hand, are pale as thighs. A streambed knuckled with pebbles. In conversation with the river, you will not match its fluency. Bellbird,...

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Ivan de Monbrison

      мы сделаны из кусочков тишины вместе взятых. гроб из плоти - это тело оно содержит нас от рождения до смерти но в небе только одно облако осталось висеть на углу наклонного здания и кто в любой момент мог упасть     we are made of pieces...

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Heather Walker

    Chilled Yeah, I’m okay; been beatin’ up the soil with a spade and fork deadheading the has-beens who no longer talk I have to say in this bone crushing winter I nearly gave up but I’m alright now. Gonna sort the pond next and yup, many a thing has...

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Olive M. Ritch

      After Dinner We take up our positions either side of the mantelpiece – he’s in his rocking-chair behind The Times, mouth moving, no sound; I’m counting stitches, the pattern, the history; outside, applause: hailstones on flagstones, then silence...

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Martin Potter

      bats under the bridge a broad vault but too low to skirt its flowing floor by weed-cramped margins awareness of great weight above the suspended stones unhomely cut short shelter damp through-draught echoes a paradise of reverse for night-bats...

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Julian Dobson

      Out of office auto-response desks morph into surplus femurs stalking unlit rooms    chairs are pelvises minus a sense of swing walls creep further apart each day carpet oceans lap workstations nobody needs to raise a voice now on the executive...

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